Early European personifications of America, meaning the Americas, typically come from sets of the four continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. These were all that were then known in Europe. The addition of America made these an even more attractive group to represent visually, as sets of four could be placed around all sorts of four-sided objects, or in pairs along the facade of a building with a central doorway.

Personification is the representation of a thing or abstraction as a person. It is, in other words, considered an embodiment or an incarnation. In the arts, many things are commonly personified. These include numerous types of places, especially cities, countries, and continents, elements of the natural world such as the trees or four seasons, four elements, four cardinal winds, five senses, and abstractions such as virtues, especially the four cardinal virtues and seven deadly sins, the nine Muses, or death.